The opposition parties are screaming for the Defense minister's head, they may get it as there is a long tradition of someone has to pay for this and it isn't going to be the PM.

I must confess that as soon as I heard this aircraft was single engine I hated it. We lost a tremendous (for us) number of pilots in the old F-104 and two engines is why we bought our current CF-18s that have given us great service. We bought the carrier version of the F-18 (tail hook and all) because they were more 'robust' than the land version. Seldom mentioned we got a better price than the US navy because we ordered the full batch at once rather than the one year at a time system the US used for funding military orders.

Canada said Wednesday that it would reconsider plans to buy 65 F-35 fighter jets after an independent audit found that the sophisticated stealth planes would cost substantially more than the government had promised.

The decision was an unusual step back by Stephen Harper, the prime minister, who has been a strident defender of the purchase despite widespread public criticism of the price. ...

...

If Canada were to back out of the project, it would be a blow to Lockheed and the Pentagon, which is counting on foreign sales to help reduce the cost of building each of the planes.

The F-35 was conceived as the Chevrolet of the sky, a radar-evading aircraft that could be built relatively cheaply and adapted to the needs of the Air Force, Navy and Marines.

But almost from the start, development of the planes and their sophisticated gear proved far more costly and difficult than anticipated.

...

Canada’s concerns about the costs of the F-35s come as American officials worry that the F-35’s huge price tag could make it a target for budget cutters in Washington as well.

...

In the past, Mr. MacKay and others have emphasized the need for Canada’s next generation of fighters to include the radar-evading stealth technology found on the F-35. But several military analysts in Canada have noted that the country’s air force had not been actively involved in first strikes, where stealth would be most crucial. Others have questioned using the single-engine F-35 for patrols in remote Arctic regions, a primary mission for Canada’s military.